The two 2012 presidential hopefuls finished the 90-minute entitlement reform debate, held just outside of Houston, the same way they started it: praising each other’s views and experience and collectively railing on Washington and government spending.

The audience in the sold-out conference hall – who each paid at least $150 to attend, and many of whom lined up long before the scheduled start time to chat with Gingrich, his wife, Callista, and the character of Ellis the Elephant from her latest children’s book — didn’t seem to mind the lack of fireworks. Each candidate received frequent cheers and applause, sometimes even standing ovations, for comments that seemed designed for a tea party audience.

More like a candidate forum in which everyone agreed on everything, the debate ignored the most high-profile issue in the campaign this past week: the revelations of sexual harassment allegations against Cain and the media attention that’s followed.

The event, sponsored by the Texas Patriots PAC and moderated by Iowa Rep. Steve King and a local Americans for Prosperity leader, was modeled after the Lincoln-Douglas debates that are often held up as the model of intense, policy-based political face-offs.

But unlike those 1858 debates, Saturday featured almost no disagreement between the two candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination. They chatted, smiled and often laughed together in an environment much more relaxed than the other debate stages so far this fall that have included the rest of the field.

That was the mood from the very first question, when Cain demurred on a rebuttal to an answer Gingrich gave on reforming Medicare.

“I’m supposed to have a minute to disagree with something he said, but I don’t,” he said.

Shortly after, time limits were abolished and the two candidates batted comments back and forth at will. Most of the discussion was focused on solutions to the three major entitlement programs featured in the debate – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – and both candidates stressed the need for change, as well as President Obama’s failure to act.

At the end of each section, Cain and Gingrich were allowed to ask each other questions – which they used mostly to compliment each other.

“You spent a lot of years successfully in Congress. You have a very distinguished career,” Cain asked Gingrich. “Then you left Congress, and that gave you an opportunity to start some other ventures and to think and so you’ve been studying and thinking about things rather than being inside that Washington bubble. What are the three biggest things you have come to realize by being outside the bubble during this period of time?”

The biggest opportunity Gingrich had to differentiate himself from Cain – a reference to the 9-9-9 plan – he punted, saying he was going to “sidestep the temptation” to discuss Cain’s signature tax plan.

They even joked about sharing the ticket next year (though disagreeing on who should be in which spot).

For the last question of the evening, Cain asked Gingrich what his first action would be if elected vice-president.

The event comes at a critical time for Cain, who has spent the last week fighting off a firestorm of attention over claims of sexual harassment during his time at the National Restaurant Association. Saturday night’s debate was Cain’s first event outside of D.C. since the allegations were first reported by POLITICO last Sunday.

But the only reference to the scandal came obliquely, when Gingrich asked Cain what surprised him most about running for president.

“The nit-pickiness of the media,” Cain responded, to applause and cheers from the audience. “It is the actions and behavior of the media that have been the biggest surprise. There are too many people in the media who are downright dishonest.”

The cordial, tame joint appearance by Cain and Gingrich on Saturday night was par for a race in which they’ve often offered outright praise for each other in debates and defended each other against outside criticism. It’s not even their first joint appearance: they shared the spotlight on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month.

The relationship has some history: both Georgia natives, they’ve known each other for 15 years. In fact, former House Speaker Denny Hastert said on MSNBC earlier this week that he first got to know Cain while Gingrich was speaker, and used to bring Cain in for policy talks with the House Republican conference in the 1990s.

Gingrich even offered the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO some advice about handling his current scandal in an interview with CNN earlier in the week.

“Just has to slow down, take a deep breath,” Gingrich told CNN. “If you’ve never before been hit by the entire national press corps, it’s a very disorienting experience. I think that he probably wasn’t prepared for it and I think now he’s got to sit down and sort it out and we’ll see how he does.”

The idea of a two-candidate, Lincoln-Douglas-style debate in the middle of a crowded primary season is an odd one – especially when it involves two Georgians meeting in the home state of one of their chief rivals, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

But organizers of the event say it wasn’t intended to exclude anyone: they just believe, as Gingrich has stated before, that having eight candidates on stage isn’t as effective as narrowing that down to two.

Representatives from Texas Patriots PAC say they plan to invite other candidates to future debates as well, and will vary the debate themes as they go.